


she's singing again

by goandneverlookback



Series: Second-Hand Sorrows [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Anxiety, Betrayal, Depression, Healing, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12186966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goandneverlookback/pseuds/goandneverlookback
Summary: “I think the day I realized I was getting better with my depression was the day I was making cookies and humming the words to a Disney song and the conversation in the living room stopped and then I heard my mom sniff and very shakily whisper to my grandma, “she’s singing again.””	--tumblr (wolfwithafoxtail)





	she's singing again

            It was a Wednesday. Zoe was making dinner, just as she had every Wednesday since the one when she’d found Connor. It’s been four months since her and Evan’s…breakup. Four long, silent months for Cynthia, watching her spunky, outspoken daughter retreat into a quiet, reserved shell of herself. To call it a breakup would make it sound so mild. Evan’s confession had hit the entire family hard, but seemed to affect Zoe the most. Everything she’d come to believe, hope in even, over the past ten months had been nothing but a lie. Ironically enough, she’d come to understand her brother better in the past four months rather than the last four years of his life. Cynthia was terrified. Would Zoe follow her brother down the same self-destructive path? Would she forever shut out the world as he had? Would the silence that filled their home become permanent? She couldn’t bear to lose another child. Larry waffled with what to do. He wanted to help, to do what he hadn’t been able to with Connor. But he also wanted to ignore everything that was happening, to pretend like his family wasn’t on the verge of falling apart again. Zoe was drowning, simultaneously feeling everything and nothing at all. She began to understand Connor’s darkness, and she found she was not alone. She could see how alone Connor had felt, but she could also see the differences. Even as children, Connor had always had a greater potential for anger. Zoe had had the quicker temper, but Connor became furious and took longer to calm down. As they got older, something in Connor had changed. He was angry at the world, and Zoe wasn’t exempt from that. Zoe couldn’t blame the world, not when she could see so many others doing so well. So Zoe blamed herself. She blamed herself for not knowing how to help Connor more, for believing all of Evan’s lies, for falling so head over heels in love with him. Even the kids in jazz band noticed things had changed. When school started again in the fall, Zoe played the notes on the page. She took less chances, questioned less, challenged less. She was still good. She was still amazing, but what had made her special was missing. To the rest of the world, Zoe Murphy was disappearing. And she was, to some extent. Zoe dove into everything that had gone wrong, searching for understanding, reconciliation, redemption. The list of Connor’s ten favorite books—she read them all. Memoirs about depression and suicidal ideation, memoirs about anxiety and books about trees—she devoured them. With each page she turned, Zoe remembered how to live. Time passed, filled with hours and hours of books and countless trips to the library, and gradually things begin to change. Slowly, just a hint every once in a while. A miniscule riff in jazz band. A subtly argumentative question in psychology. And then, for the first time in months, a soft melody over the stovetop. In the adjacent living room, Cynthia Murphy pauses, eyes filling with tears as the beautiful melody whispered to her, _“we’re gonna be okay.”_


End file.
